Authorities in Ukraine announced the arrest of a gang that operated 20 exchange services to launder money from the criminal activities of other criminals. The fraudsters are said to have laundered $42 million.
According to authorities, the gang consisted of three people and had been operating since 2018. The three fraudsters advertised their services on underground criminal forums. The gang told potential clientsthat they could convert cryptocurrencies, obtained through illegal activities, into fiat currency, helping criminals launder money.
The arrests were made in late June, but new details have now been released by Binance and Ukrainian police. Binance, which participated in the investigation, said the gang was working with ransomware groups, while also distributing ransomware itself.
“Bulletproof Exchanger” project
The recent money laundering arrests mark the first fruits of “Bulletproof Exchanger,” a Binance project that the company launched earlier this year.
The role of this project is to identify malicious activities in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, identify the perpetrators, and work with authorities to arrest them.
“‘Bulletproof Exchanger’ is a general term used internally to describe a high- risk used for criminal activities, such as ransomware,” the cryptocurrency exchange’s security team said.
Binance conducts research and collects data, DNS records, etc.
Help from TRM Labs
Once Binance acquired a complete database of different signals, the company partnered with TRM Labs, a blockchain analytics firm specializing in fraud detection.
Binance said that TRM Labs analyzed the data and eventually identified a first bulletproof exchanger and one of its money laundering clients , which was a ransomware gang. Thus, further investigation was conducted
Binance authorities, who launched an investigation into the ransomware group. then shared its findings with Ukrainian
“Some cases can take years,” Binance’s security team said . “In this case, we were able to move very quickly, taking about three months.”
The “Bulletproof Exchanger” project continues
Binance says the Bulletproof Exchanger Project will continue to operate and hopes to identify similar criminal groups.
“Combating money laundering, ransomware , and other malicious activities is vital to the well-being of the [cryptocurrency] community and the growth of the industry,” Binance said.
